It's hard to think of Apple and Facebook as obstructions to innovation and the free flow of information, but that's exactly what the companies could become one day, according to Jonathan Zittrain, a Harvard law professor and a proponent of free speech on the Web.

Apple and Facebook have generated lots of consumer satisfaction by each creating environments where third-party developers can tailor software for the iPhone or Facebook's social network. Part of their success is due to the quality control the companies maintain over the applications running on their platforms, Zittrain said. But he also worries that Apple and Facebook--as well as other companies that might be tempted to follow their lead--will begin to exert more control over independent software development than ever before. He's skeptical this would be good for anyone.

In an interview with CNET News.com last week, Zittrain said his fears were stoked recently when Apple and Facebook each made news for booting software apps off their platforms.

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DIGITAL WORLD - Who's afraid of OpenOffice? Not the government of Israel, which will once again fund development of the Hebrew OpenOffice project. But to judge by some of the online comments reacting to this news, there are lots of Israelis who are afraid of Oo!

OpenOffice (http://www.openoffice.org), as everyone knows by now, is the free, open-source office suite, an alternative for many people (including yours truly) to Microsoft Office.

Writing in English as I do, I work mostly with the US English version of Oo (and its Mac brother, NeoOffice), generally using the word processor component of the suite, and occasionally building a Powerpoint-style presentation using Oo's Presentation component.

Now, this is not a story comparing the abilities, plusses and minuses, or other competitive aspects of the MS Office/OpenOffice issue - you can find reams of data about that in your friendly local Google search box. For most of those who have worked with both programs at one time or another, that battle was resolved a long time ago - depending on individual experience, need, disposable income (can you afford MS Office) or level of ethical commitment (do you refrain from pirating expensive software, especially if several perfectly good alternatives are available). For me, Oo works great; I haven't had compatibility issues for years, with everything I produce in OpenOffice readable and editable by those using MS Office, and vice versa. As far as I'm concerned, the war is over - and I (and my wallet) won!

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IBM has developed a tool to reduce errors in programming. Its Rational Software Analyser is designed to detect errors in software while the code is being written.

The product is basically a static code analyser, which is bit like a word processor for checking the "grammar" and "spelling" in source code. What sets IBM's Rational Software Analyser apart is that with its approach source code written in multiple languages can be analysed at the same time. The different pieces of source code are presented in the same integrated development environment.

Finding and fixing bugs in software is a costly business. Identifying and repairing software defects in a software application that is already in production can cost software developers more than £8100 for each defect.

An International Data Corporation (IDC) report found that economic conditions and problems with the way businesses are debugging software mean this could be a particularly important product. Companies are taking risks on software because, with businesses cutting staff in the tough market conditions, there are fewer people to fix bugs.

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IBM Malaysia has unveiled its Jazz collaborative technology and said the product helps geographically dispersed teams work together in an open, ­transparent software ­environment in real time.

“The challenges of globalisation are forcing software development teams based around the world to collaborate on projects,” said Michael O’Rourke, IBM Rational software development vice-president.

“However, barriers such as the physical location of the team members, time zone differences and project error that can occur because of any miscommunication must be overcome.”

Jazz will help resolve these ­problems, according to IBM, which was showing off the new product at its Rational Software Development Conference in Subang Jaya recently.

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IBM, at the IBM Rational Software Development Conference, has announced new software that will transform how people will collaborate, thereby driving greater value and performance from their globally distributed software investments. The company announced 20 products that break down the walls that inhibit organizations from truly collaborating with partners, suppliers, customers and their employees.

These new offerings use IBM's Jazz collaborative technology to help geographically distributed software delivery teams work together in an open, real-time and transparent manner to more effectively deliver and source software solutions.

IBM said the biggest challenge Indian companies face is the impact of globalization, which is forcing them to become more nimble. In the world of software delivery, this means around the clock collaboration with specialized teams around the globe to pick up where another left off. For other stakeholders in an organization, such as lawyers, a finance department, CIO or CEO, there is an increased need for visibility into how the software is delivered on a global scale.

Technologies built on,or using, Jazz can interoperate with software from other vendors allowing customers to significantly improve their ability to communicate data within and between their enterprise.

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Outsourcing basically refers to getting things done from somewhere else rather than getting it done in-house. Outsourcing is as old as the history of humanity. A firm generally decides to outsource services in order to lower the cost of the firm, in order to conserve energy directed at the competencies of the particular firm or in order to get more efforts from expert professionals. Outsourcing, to speak more precisely, involves the transferring or sharing management control of a business function to an outside supplier, which involves a degree of two-way information exchange, coordination and trust between the outsourcer and its clients.

The IT sector all across has been witnessing great boom and this has been possible because of the involvement of IT experts who are ready to provide their services to businesses according to the needs of the business. Software outsourcing basically helps in getting good quality work that involves excellent professionalism and security by the various IT software professionals across the globe. There are many countries, including upholstery cleaning miami United States of America, Dubai and various other nations, offer software outsourcing to clients who are interested in getting the software work of their firm done by some other professional. Extensive studies across the world about the software industry reveal that the cost of hiring skilled software professionals is about five times less in comparison to what is required in the American and the European countries, which further leads in companies getting their work outsourced from an offshore destination.

There are n numbers of software firms all across who offer software-outsourcing services to businesses and firms that require their services. However, there are certain facts that you will need to consider before you go in for software outsourcing from any software firm. It mainly depends on the complexity of your project. If your project is a high precedence one then it is natural that you will like carpet cleaning company a firm who can do better work and can give good performance to your firm. Suppose you have a recently started business then you will surely consider an individual to for your task. This will be a cost-effective business strategy for your dream business. Opting for software outsourcing helps in reducing the workload, the pressure of the people who are getting the service outsourced, and the work is done easily and without any hassle. Moreover, the best part of opting for software outsourcing is that you can be relaxed and can be assured of getting quality work from the software outsourcing firm that you have hired to get your work done.

Source : http://www.corsavoo.com/

Much debate on offshoring IT jobs revolves around well-known arguments.

Proponents of offshore outsourcing, who are generally averse to protectionist measures, tend to focus on the traditional advantages of free trade, such as a more efficient allocation of labor resources and the benefits of competition for the consumer. Detractors spotlight the hidden costs of offshore outsourcing, concerns about security and the potential loss of skilled IT jobs in the U.S. Their remedies include proposing legislation designed to protect IT jobs and setting employment requirements for companies bidding on government projects.

Recently, an alarm has been sounded that high-end IT work such as the design of software and the development of innovative software is being claimed by companies overseas . If so, it must be remembered that software has some peculiar aspects, including tremendous job-creation potential, no matter where it's developed.

Imagine that a programmer in India writes a program so useful that it creates thousands of jobs for developers in the U.S. to adopt, support and enhance its functionality.

New software products have had this effect many times; software is often not a final product, but instead a versatile tool that can be used in the production of a broad range of goods and services. And advances in software can also open up to automation areas that were previously off limits.

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European manufacturers should have years of competitive advantage in embedded software development, thanks to outputs from the EUREKA ITEA software Cluster AGILE project.

So says Dr Pekka Abrahamsson of project coordinator VTT Technical Research Centre in Finland. He points to 68 pilot case studies, in industries ranging from avionics and telecoms to consumer electronics, all of which demonstrated the power of the ‘agile’ methodology for software engineering.

Software tools that simplify application of the agile approach have also been successfully demonstrated, and the results are much faster and cheaper development of quality systems.

“Agile is a new paradigm for software development that emerged around eight years ago in the USA,” explains Abrahamsson. “When we started the ITEA project in 2004, we did not know whether this new methodology could be exploited for embedded software in [manufacturing].”

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Businesses are spending more money on software development as the complexity of applications increases. But as the economy plunges into recession, IT directors will find it increasingly difficult to retain a programming team capable of sustaining complex internal application development. Users need to focus on improving the quality of software development to tackle escalating costs, warns Melinda-Carol Ballou, an analyst at IDC.

An IDC survey of 149 IT departments found that 63% of users were running software development projects that were more complex now than in the past two years. Complexity has been rising due to the growth in service oriented architectures and multicore hardware, which can complicate software development and the increasing use of open source, which involves greater collaboration and co-ordination among software developers.

Downtime arising from poorly tested software is expensive. In one example from the study, IDC estimates the average cost of fixing a defect in a production system at £1,093, assuming it takes 30 man-hours to find and repair the bug.

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Telecom and wireless giant, AT&T Inc., has launched an American Idol-style contest for mobile application developers in the New England states.

The program, which the company calls “Fast-Pitch New England,” will reward the #1 mobile software developer with $10,000 in cash, as well as free promotion of the winning application in AT&T retail outlets and the AT&T devCentral website.

“Programs like Fast-Pitch New England help ensure that customers have the best applications at their fingertips,” commented AT&T’s general manager of wireless operations for New England, Steve Krom. “The tech community is thriving here and we’re please to be able to bring attention to a talented application development company in the area.”

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Top ten tips to implement the right IT strategy.

With the credit crunch affecting IT budgets, Experimentus, a UK software quality management solutions consultancy, highlights ten ways to reduce software development lifecycle costs within IT departments :

1. Focus on well documented Functional Requirements

Without well documented Functional Requirements, there is potential for a system to be delivered which does not meet the customer's expectations. For example, perhaps it does not work as they believe it should – even though the development team believe that they have worked in line with the requirements as documented. This can lead to development rework, which is likely to delay the release, increase costs and create discord between the customer and the software team.

2. Ensure all Non - Functional Requirements are clearly defined early

Many organisations focus solely on the Functional aspect of systems – WHAT it does – rather than the Non-Functional – HOW it does it. Non-Functional elements comprise everything from performance to security to usability.

Without clear, early definition of Non-Functional requirements, it is possible that a system could be delivered which does exactly what the customer wants – but is difficult to use, slow, insecure, unreliable or is not scalable. Once again, this can lead to development rework – although some non-functional areas are so integral to the design of the product that it can be difficult to correct them without starting the project again.

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I’ve written about Agile software development twice in the past month, highlighting its potential to help developers produce enterprise applications that will actually help business users do their jobs.

Many companies struggle with Agile because it’s so different from the traditional waterfall method of software development. Now, change wouldn’t seem to be a bad thing, considering the low opinion many business users have of enterprise software. But it scares many executives, who prefer to lumber along, doggedly sticking to their usual path, instead of picking up the pace and risking a fall.

But even this change-averse approach might be preferable to making a half-assed commitment to change. That’s one of the lessons contained in a CIO.com article about a misguided effort to adopt Agile methods that ended up looking a lot like a traditional waterfall project with a thin veneer of Agile. The result, writes the author:

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